It’s still really popular, it’s still really loud and it still does liquids proud. (Good luck finding a stool at the bar.) The Red Hen, older sibling to the ace All-Purpose in Shaw, is a neighborhood restaurant designed for people looking for a little jazz in their food. A ball of burrata atop chickpea-lentil salad splashed with oregano vinaigrette? Covered. Grilled-striped octopus on cauliflower-almond cream with a scattering of ’nduja bread crumbs? You bet. Pastas are more of a mixed bag than they used to be, judging from one night’s doughy ricotta cavatelli, but I’m all over the squid ink linguine, dressed with cannellini beans, pea shoots, calamari, pickled Fresno chile and (we’re almost there) bread crumbs. The grill is your friend. Spring for crisp chicken splayed on hazelnut-romesco sauce. Short ribs can be tough, and whereas wines used to be introduced with quiet flair, that’s not always the case now. If Red Hen isn’t quite the charmer it was when it opened, in a neighborhood hungry for food options, the restaurant nevertheless calls to me when I’m close and craving something casual, riffs included.

You can always count on the pasta at the Red Hen in Bloomingdale. (Stacy Zarin Goldberg/Stacy Zarin Goldberg/For the Washington Post)

(Good/Excellent)

If you want to know what you should be drinking this nanosecond, belly up to the bar at one of the best things that has ever happened to Bloomingdale and ask co-owner Sebastian Zutant for a recommendation. Last year, he had us drinking orange wine from Spain. This go, it’s Riesling from Serbia, a super-dry match for suckling pig porchetta, an impressive hunk of soft meat and crisp skin rounded out with roasted fingerlings and salsa verde. There’s more where that came from: Chef Michael Friedman’s pastas never fail to satisfy. To eat his tube-shaped paccheri under duck ragu, baby tomatoes and fresh mint is to pledge allegiance to a kitchen with a roaring oak fire. There’s also less where that comes from. Charred octopus with chickpea salad suffers from tough tentacles and chickpeas so undercooked you wonder if your dentist takes night calls. Red Hen, all bonhomie and warm wood, isn’t as consistent as I wish. But it nails enough, often enough, to stay on your dance card.

Tom SietsemaTom Sietsema has been The Washington Post's food critic since 2000. He previously worked for the Microsoft Corp., where he launched sidewalk.com; the Seattle Post-Intelligencer; the San Francisco Chronicle; and the Milwaukee Journal. He has also written for Food & Wine. Follow